Freight News

Nigeria’s state oil firm said it had spent $5.8 billion on fuel imports since late 2017, as it combats a fuel shortage that has left people queuing for hours at filling stations and hobbled an already-struggling economy. “The corporation’s intervention became necessary following the inability of the major and independent marketers to import the product because of the high landing cost which made cost recovery and profitability difficult,” the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said in a statement. The price of gasoline is a highly charged subject in Nigeria, Africa’s ...

Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture said it received no offers for feed-quality wheat or barley in a simultaneous buy and sell (SBS) auction that closed late on Wednesday. The ministry had sought 120,000 tonnes of feed wheat and 200,000 tonnes of feed barley to be loaded by May 31 and arrive in Japan by July 31 in the tender that is usually conducted weekly. It sought similar quantities of each grain to be loaded and shipped during the same period in a similar tender that will be held on Feb. 28. ...

Ecuador’s state-run oil company Petroecuador has launched a tender to sell four 190,000-barrel cargoes of fuel oil for delivery from March through May at its Esmeraldas terminal, according to a document seen by Reuters. The first cargo will be delivered on March 18-20, according to the tender’s terms. The fuel oil will contain up to 2.5 percent of sulfur. Bids will be received through March 1, indexed to high-sulfur fuel oil prices from the US Gulf Coast. Source: Reuters

A $15 billion deal to export Israeli gas to Egypt is moving forward after months of talks, bringing the Jewish state a step closer to becoming an energy exporter to the most populous Arab country. Noble Energy Inc. and Delek Drilling-LP said they plan to supply around 64 billion cubic meters of natural gas over 10 years to Egypt’s Dolphinus Holdings Ltd. from Israel’s Tamar and Leviathan reservoirs. Shares of Israeli gas companies soared the most in nine years on Monday. The deal needs regulatory and government approvals in Egypt ...

Taiwan’s CPC Corp is seeking a spot cargo of sour crude for loading in April, a tender document showed. The cargo is to be discharged at Kaohsiung or Shalung over April 15 to May 15, according to the document. The tender closes on Feb. 21 and is valid until Feb. 23. Source: Reuters (Reporting by Jessica Jaganathan; Editing by Sunil Nair)

India’s LPG imports are expected to rise by 2 million mt, or nearly 17% year on year, to about 14 million mt in fiscal 2018-2019 (April-March) as demand from households surges on the government’s efforts to shift to clean fuels, sources familiar with the matter said. Imports are set to reach around 12 million mt in fiscal 2017-2018, making India the world’s second-biggest LPG importer, and in the next five years, annual imports are expected to rise to around 16 million mt, they said. Though this will drive demand for ...

European biodiesel producers are concerned that expected summer imports from both Argentina and Indonesia will put significant pressure on their production margins. “Everyone will be affected by the Indonesian and Argentinian imports — it will push people away from production,” a source said. The premium for RME over front-month ICE gasoil futures is being supported by greater demand and some production cuts, sources say, but this has done little to support margins, which are still under pressure. The demand for RME will wane moving into the summer as its superior ...

Dwindling volumes at the biggest U.S. oil storage hub and the potential for bigger cargoes to sail overseas is giving American crude a premium sheen once again. The price of U.S. benchmark oil has gone above the Middle East marker for the first time in more than a year, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The shale boom that drove American crude to a discount spurred an unprecedented surge of relatively cheap shipments to Asia. That was a pain for top OPEC producers such as Saudi Arabia, which had their market ...

U.S. gasoline consumption has levelled off as the stimulus provided by low and falling oil prices between 2014 and 2016 has faded, so refiners are increasingly turning to diesel and customers in emerging markets. U.S. gasoline consumption is forecast to rise by just 40,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2018, after remaining essentially unchanged last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Slower consumption growth stands in contrast to the earlier surge when usage rose by almost 260,000 bpd in 2015 and another 140,000 bpd in 2016 (“Short-Term Energy ...

India, the world’s second-largest coal importer, is set to see a rise in shipments of the fuel as domestic production lags behind demand, Benjamin Sporton, Chief Executive at the World Coal Association said. State-run Coal India Ltd., which produces more than 80 percent of India’s coal, is failing to meet production targets, creating a gap that will be met through imports, Sporton said in New Delhi last week. The Kolkata-based miner has missed shipment targets every year since at least 2010. It has focused on supplies to power stations, while ...

If China does seek a way to retaliate against U.S. proposals to impose import curbs on steel and aluminium, then targeting President Donald Trump’s favoured coal would be tempting. One of Trump’s key campaign promises in the 2016 election victory was to end the war on what he termed “beautiful, clean” coal. Figures released last week by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) suggest he has met with some success. U.S. coal output surged the most in 16 years to reach 773 million short tonnes, equivalent to about 701 million ...

While an Aramco IPO continues to grab the headlines, Saudi Arabia is quietly getting on with the business of weaning itself off a dependence on crude oil exports, with flows of refined products soaring and direct burning of crude near multi-year lows, writes Bloomberg oil strategist Julian Lee. Data for December from the Joint Organisations Data Initiative in Riyadh show that Saudi Arabia is continuing to make progress in reducing its dependence on crude oil for export and power generation, with its refinery inputs hitting a new high and ...

Over the next two years, EIA’s Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) projects growth in U.S. consumption of ethane in the petrochemical industry will exceed increases in consumption of all other petroleum and liquid products—such as motor gasoline, distillate, and jet fuel—combined. EIA also projects that ethane exports will continue increasing, as ethane is exported both by pipeline to Canada and by tankers to more distant destinations. Ethane is separated from raw natural gas at natural gas processing plants along with other hydrocarbon gas liquids (HGL) such as propane, normal butane, isobutane, ...

Kuwait Petroleum has received acceptances from at least two buyers for the renewal of light and full range naphtha contracts for loading over April 2018-March 2019, market sources said Tuesday. The premium for light naphtha was heard concluded at a premium of $14.50/mt to Mean of Platts Arab Gulf naphtha assessments, FOB, and the premium for full range naphtha at $13/mt to MOPAG naphtha assessments, FOB, the sources said. KPC did not respond to S&P Global Platts’ requests for confirmation. The deal levels in this round were much higher than ...